Legalization of Marijuana, Not Safe or Justifiable
... First of all, marijuana in small amounts is harmful, even to those who aren’t using it. This is because marijuana has a negative effect on coordination, judgment, reaction time, and tracking ability, which in turn results in many injuries and deaths to innocent people, especially when marijuana is involved with use of motor vehicles. “New psychopharmacologic information has shown that marijuana shares many features of other extremely harmful, illegal drugs.” (Joffe et al. 632-636) Marijuana has also been proven to have severe negative effects on short term memory, concentration, attention span, and problem solving. The criminal sanctions for possession and use of marijuana that are seen by some as harsh, actually serve an important purpose, which is to deter the overall use, especially by minors who in recent surveys have reported using marijuana far more frequently in decriminalized areas. Marijuana would also not be beneficial to society because new laws and ordinances would need to be approved and enforced in a system where simple rules such as restriction of sale of tobacco products to minors are having trouble being followed. Legalization of marijuana would also increase costs in health care, insurance, and in other economic areas. Medicinal marijuana, has also not been proven to be one hundred percent effective, and even more importantly is unnecessary because recent medical information proves that the medical benefits of marijuana lie in its cannabinoids and therefore marijuana would not need to be used, only parts of it to create a medicine. (Joffe et al. 632-636) Marijuana is extremely harmful and never should be legalized for many reasons. Scientists have proven that people who try to quit using marijuana go through extreme withdrawal which includes severe emotional stress because of the brain chemical corticotrophin. This is the same brain chemical that is affected by the use of cocaine and users of marijuana experience similar withdrawal to cocaine users. Marijuana has also been proven to create dependence similar to other extremely harmful, illegal drugs through its active ingredient tetrahydrocannabinol. Marijuana needs to also be seen for what it truly is by the general public. This is because when a harmful drug is not seen as harmful, it becomes socially acceptable and then use of the drug sky rockets. For instance, in the mid 1960’s enforcement of marijuana laws became lax by police because of the high level of heroin use. The use of marijuana increased greatly and did not decline until laws were more strictly enforced and the negative effects of marijuana publicized. This was the same with drugs such as cocaine which experienced a similar rise and fall. (Joffe et al. 632-636) The legalization of marijuana would also have a devastating effect on adolescents. If marijuana were to be legalized, many parents may choose to start using it which would be a new source of exposure for adolescents. Legalization would also create a greater widespread availability of the drug. This would in turn produce many more marijuana users in children, and recent studies show that adolescents who are offered marijuana are seven times more likely to use marijuana than those who had not been. Marijuana is also a gateway to more drugs. Legalizing marijuana would push those who use marijuana to go even further by trying other illegal drugs and several studies have show...